Introducing: Gardland - "It's just you and the machines... and the heat"

To what lengths would you go, to shape the sound of your debut album? Alex Murray and Mark Smith, better known as Gardland, took the rather courageous decision to spend a psychedelic ten day trip confined to the harsh, merciless landscape of the Australian desert, huddled under the relentlessly unforgiving glare of the sun to garner inspiration, and craft the snippets of noise that would form the foundations of the duo's debut LP.

To what lengths would you go, to shape the sound of your debut album? Alex Murray and Mark Smith, better known as Gardland, took the rather courageous decision to spend a psychedelic ten day trip confined to the harsh, merciless landscape of the Australian desert, huddled under the relentlessly unforgiving glare of the sun to garner inspiration, and craft the snippets of noise that would form the foundations of the duo's debut LP. "Apart from being eight hours away from civilisation and its manifold distractions, going out there kind of reinforced our tendency to get lost in our own bubble."

This extreme isolation, viciously severing any contact with the outside world, paid dividends. It's telling, perhaps, that Syndrome Syndrome is a clammy, unsettling slice of brutal electronica, steeped in waves of claustrophobia and restlessness, baked and hardened around the edges by the piercing heat. "You wake up, its fifty-something degrees, there's nobody living within sixty kilometres or so," they recall, rather matter-of-factly. "It's just you and the machines...and the heat."

While the album is a punishing listen at times, a notion that the duo are fully aware of, it's a far more cohesive burst of noise than their self-titled debut EP, Gardland and, if nothing at all, a strong, exhilarating indicator towards how quickly their sound has matured since. This can, in some part, surely be attributed to the way in which Gardland refer to their local counterparts, the smouldering embers of determination stoked by gentle admiration. "We're most influenced by our friends making stuff. Sydney locals such as Gareth Psaltis, Nander and Cassius Select push us to be better every time they put something out, because they're working right next to us, not on the other side of the world".

Despite freely endorsing their fellow contemporaries, the pair are a little less forthcoming, cautious, even, when discussing the lingering stamp of outside influences. "Obviously, we listen to a lot of music, but in Australia the connection to your 'influences', be they from the States or the Continent, is very abstract and susceptible to misinterpretation - which can be quite fruitful, but also a little frustrating. That being said, Proibito, White Material, Mathematics, Strength Music and PAN are shared tastes."

Despite enduring the misfortune of having their synths snatched mid-recording, Murray and Smith are refreshingly sober about the debacle - and enthusiastic about its rejuvenating effect on Syndrome Syndrome. "Turned out to be the best thing that happened to us," they declare, somewhat defiantly. "There was a period of trying to reclaim the sounds we lost - but when we realised that this was a waste of time and decided to focus on making totally new stuff, the material came out thick and fast. Definitely a blessing in disguise."

Perhaps it is Gardland's raw approach when tackling musical endeavours, the gleeful butchering of well-worn clichés, that endears them to us so fiercely. Perhaps it is the undeniably addictive rush of Syndrome Syndrome that has us so eager to hear what they do next, despite the duo only feeling "fairly pleased" with the finished product and shrugging the record off as "polarising". Let us simply be grateful for Gardland. Be thankful, mind, that you don't have to hide yourself away in the middle of the fucking desert to appreciate their output.